Gunners Blazing

Gunners Blazing

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring! The final bell of the day sounded and resounded through the halls like the squeal of Death sharpening his trademark sickle against a revolving stone. Little Jimmy Jenson shuddered in his seat, not seeming to notice his peers all standing and fleeing the undersized classroom in scores of scraping chairs and thundering tennis shoes; his mind was too preoccupied, imagining livid sparks springing up from where that blade met the stone. Then, from beneath the hood, a grin shown with crooked, yellowed teeth, slowly spreading, seeming to stretch outward from the center of what must have been Death's face, the corners of his mouth straining impossibly wide and curling upwards at vicious, equally dubious angles. Had Death been the proud owner of an epidermous, Li'l JJ was sure that even the springiest of flesh would surely tear and shred with such a canyon-like sneer, but he was quickly proven wrong. A giant hand, surprisingly human, flesh and all, seemed to manifest itself from out of nowhere, originating somewhere from that inky blackness that was Death's cloak. As the hand rose, the sparks faltered, and inevitabely ceased altogether; Death's weapon of choice was ready, and just as his dead, shark-like eyes sprang open, almost glowing from beneath the hood like those of the famed cheshire cat, the cloak was torn off in dramatic fashion.

In one fleeting swoosh of cloth against air, not dissimilar from the beating of many wings, Death disappeared, and was replaced by a sinister being of much shorter stature, but equal infamy among children JJ's age.

Standing before Jimmy was at least a hundred pounds of what had to be an early interest in body-building. Nearly the size of a fifth grader, and at least a billion times as mean, was the imposing Gunner. Gunner was in the third grade, same as Jimmy, but seemed to develop much faster than most of the other children- some were taller than him, of course, but Gunner was built like a tank, and didn't look much prettier. Even outside of Jimmy's imagination, Gunner still sported that ridiculously wide sneer, with eyes so dark they seemed almost inhuman.

SLAM! Two hands slapped down at Jimmy's desk, and the significantly smaller third-grader snapped his attention back up to the real Gunner, who wasn't much less daunting than the imaginary one. Gunner's voice was like live ammunition in a blender- gravely, but loud and booming; obnoxious even.

"Soooooo, Li'l Jimmy BUTT-FACE," Jimmy's face was suddenly flecked with spittle at the hard "B." He dare not wipe it off. "Y'know, YOU'RE the last one on my list this week, buddy... I owe you somethin' special..." Gunner leaned in close; far too close, nearly nose-to-cheek with Jimmy, giving a few whiffs in the most predatory of fashion. "Wedgie? Nah, done three of those just this week..."

Gunner's head turned upward slightly, the bully's freckled face screwed up into a very wrinkled, very ugly sort of expression that might have suggested thought. Really, Gunner probably wouldn't be such a gross looking guy if he didn't have such a creepy smile and doll-like eyes. Jimmy's train of thought quickly derailed when Gunner interrupted with his own wreck of a voice.

"WELL, swirly's not gonna do it, either... Gave one to... To Cyndi, that dame, just a couple days ago... Maybe I’ll just beat your face in…"

Li'l Jimmy Jenson took a hard gulp, a single, solitary bead of sweat trickling slowly down his temple, pulling back a little. Gunner's eyes seemed to suddenly brighten as if in a fit of inspiration, and he pulled back, much to Jimmy's relief.

"... I know what I'm gonna do with you, Little Jimmy Jenson... Flagpole, one hour. If you're not there when I am, I'll find you."

With that, Gunner walked away, snatching a pencil off the teacher's desk and sending it flying up into the air and into the ceiling, pock-marked with holes from previous pencils. The teacher, snoozing soundly with his legs up on the desk and a TV guide over his face, didn't notice or care.

Jimmy Jenson let off a sigh of relief after Gunner exited the room, quickly wiping the spittle off his face from earlier, along with the sweat from his brow. "Phew..."

Little Jimmy's reprive was short-lived. An hour seemed to fly by faster than Superman or The Flash could EVER run- before he knew what was even going on, he was already at the flagpole, waiting obediently like a stupid dog following its master out behind the shed, only to have a shotgun turned on its face. Jimmy peered up at the pole- there was no flag wavering in the wind. He wondered idley for a second where it had gone before suddenly finding himself doubled over, out of breath and clutching his gut. Before Jimmy could even register that he'd been sucker-punched in the stomach, Gunner's other filthy paw was around the back of Jimmy's collar, pulling him back and suddenly slamming poor Jimmy against the pole with a dull thud, followed by a short, low ringing.

Jimmy's eyes widended and reddened with the sharp pain suddenly gracing his backside. For a second, he thought Gunner had decided that a wedgie really was the best way to go; that was, before Jimmy realized that he was slowly being lifted up off the ground.

Gunner had actually attached Li'l JJ's underpants to the flagpole, and was now proceeding to use the pulley to lift Jimmy off the ground and high into the air. Little Jimmy Jenson went red in the face and whimpered pitifully as he slowly rose further and further off the ground, trying to gauge whether or not his underpants were strong enough to keep him up, or if they'd tear and let him fall to the ground before getting too high.

Jimmy's underpants went the distance.

Before he knew it, Jimmy was at level with the trees, legs clinging back against the pole, trying to find anything to hold onto, and Gunner bellowed out laughing below- this must've been his new favorite torture method.

After a few more tugs on the line by Gunner, Jimmy suddenly ceased moving upward. He was about as high as he could go, and the bully below was tying it off now. Jimmy could just barely make out the monster’s mad giggling as he watched Gunner take off in some direction.

“HEY! WAIT!” Jimmy shouted out after Gunner when he realized he was gonna be left all by his lonesome, hanging from the flagpole by his underpants. He could hardly stand the discomfort.

Schrrrrp…

A sudden rush of fear shot through Jimmy like a bullet, tearing his innards to shreds, suddenly feeling as though he was going to be ill. The sound he had just heard behind him was the material of his underpants starting to rip, only moments after Gunner had already been long gone. Now, with no one to save him, Little Jimmy Jenson tried to swing himself around so that he could grab onto the pole, beginning to cry, his efforts in vain. He dropped a little lower then, his desparate struggles causing the material of his drawers to tear further.

“Help!” Jimmy shouted, “HELP!” But no one came, or even noticed the poor third-grader hanging almost upside-down by the elastic of his underwear now, clinging to the pole with his legs.

SNAP!

“… NOOOOO!!”

Just as Little Jimmy Jenson’s mother had walked up the path to the school, worried sick for her son, the elastic on her baby’s underpants finally snapped, and, still holding onto the pole the whole way down, Li’l JJ slid down to his doom, a sick, deafening crack echoing across the schoolgrounds when his neck snapped on collision with the pavement. The last thought that crossed Little Jimmy’s mind just before impact was the vision of that grinning hooded figure, with the black, hollow eyes of a shark. Death was laughing.

Gunner was caught and taken into custody a mere three days after Little Jimmy Jenson’s death. It didn’t take long for the other children to point the finger, and Gunner, while too young for prison, or even Juvi, was sent to a psychiatric hospital for children and evaluated.

Gunner was diagnosed. While they couldn’t seem to come up with a solid reason for such levels of violance at such an early age (his other classmates were quick to let someone know what Gunner had done to them all in the past), they attributed it to a rare sort of dissociative disorder. By the doctor’s standards, Gunner simply didn’t view the other children as peers, or even people- merely objects, things, toys even. From what mister PhD could tell, Gunner was simply disconnected and devoid of guilt.

By order of the court, the school bully was forced to live out the rest of his childhood in the ward, where he would receive all his meals, entertainment, and instruction- upon his eighteenth birthday, they would no longer be able to hold him against his will, unless he were to do something else which might get him in trouble with the law.

Several years had passed. Jimmy had been gone a long time, but Gunner still saw him every once in a while. His therapist attributed it to guilt.

Gunner was about fourteen now, going on fifteen, and had lately been complaining about strange, vivid nightmares. He’d softened a bit in his years of near-isolation, usually being separated from the other children because of his history. He sat now in his small cube-like room, at a desk, with some non-toxic crayons and a sheet of thin paper. He tried to ignore the little third-grader in the corner of his vision. Little Jimmy was hard to look at, head lolling dangerously on his shoulders, swinging like a mace whenever he moved, completely limp.

Gunner drew a crude wolf running through a dense forest- artistically, he wasn’t very bad for his age and lack of formal instruction.

There was a knock on the door, and Gunner quickly looked up and around from his tiny desk. He didn’t have a choice whether or not someone came in, but they liked to knock before entering as a warning. Some people at the ward went ballistic if they thought you were trying to sneak up on them.

A tall man with broad shoulders and a very square jaw he didn’t know pushed his way forcefully into the room, slamming the door against the wall. He was wearing what seemed to be a trench with an old pair of Doc Marten boots. Not much else was visible. What shocked Gunner the most, though, was what the trench man was carrying behind him- the bloodied, limp, lifeless body of this hall’s orderly. The trenched man smiled faintly, sleepy eyes seeming to glisten with a slight wetness.

The man’s voice was like bullets in a blender, further roughed up by what looked to be an old throat injury. A jagged scar ran across the trench man’s throat.

“Hello, Gunner. You have a visitor… And he’s taking you home.”